Exhibition Project

“Berlin Brats” – Berlin American High School 1946-1994

First working meeting of the project team on June 17, 2004 in the Allied Museum, Berlin

- Discussion paper -


I. Idea / Concept

General

The American garrison in Berlin provided its soldiers’ children a complete education within the American school system. The educational authority behind these American schools, both in Berlin and at other major foreign bases of the U.S. forces, was the Pentagon (so-called Department of Defense Dependents’ Schools/ DODDS).

Initially established in 1946 as a comprehensive school in a confiscated German school building on Im Gehege, the Thomas A. Roberts School moved into a new building on Hüttenweg in 1953. Renamed the Berlin American High School, the school moved to its final location on Am Hegewinkel in 1965. Following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Berlin in 1994, the Wilma Rudolph Oberschule moved into the building.

Many thousands of American students earned their High School diploma in Berlin, and proudly refer to themselves as Berlin Brats. The planned exhibition will document the history of the American High School: remembering teachers and students, school life with all its special characteristics, and memorable events. As such, in terms of its topic, this is a pioneering exhibition.

The exhibition will strive to appeal beyond alumni circles and beyond those with a direct interest. To reach a broader audience, also among Germans, we suggest placing the almost 50-year existence of the American High School in both historical as well as current contexts.


Further Considerations

1. Its location in the four-sector divided city, one of the hotspots of the Cold War, made the Berlin American High School unique. Nowhere else did going to school involve direct experiences with the East-West conflict, or were visits to the Soviet sector or use of the Duty Train considered a matter of course. How 13- to 18-year-old high school students saw and felt these events, and how these experiences influenced their lives are key questions to be addressed by the exhibition.

2. The USA’s role as a protective power led to close German-American relations on both political and personal levels in West Berlin. To the extent that the American High School was active in these areas (e.g., student exchange programs, German-American action days), specific examples should be featured. Did the DODDS school curriculum call for closer study of the “host country”? What was taught about Berlin and Germany, and about Berliners and Germans, both in and outside the classroom? Which role did German teachers (“host nation teachers”) serve in this context?

3. At the same time the American community can be viewed as a world to itself, largely isolated from the outside, which both for military reasons and due to language barriers was not conducive to German-American contacts. Using High School students as an example further insight can be gained into this “little America,” the inner life of which has, to date, hardly been the subject of study. What were the rules governing life in the military community? What special features were associated with the status of being a family member of an occupying and protective power?

4. From the German perspective, the American High School students were Americans through and through. In this sense, the student generations that passed through the high school also represented and reflected the domestic development of the United States since World War II. Social and cultural changes did not grind to a stop at the schoolyard gates. The exhibition could direct attention to youth culture and its popular manifestations, for example in the areas of music and fashion. This could provide impulses for the debate on the Americanization of Germany.

5. It would be desirable to follow a few selected student biographies beyond their school days in Berlin, and to question the how the Berlin Brats feel about the city nowadays. This as the worsening of German-American relations at highest political levels raises the issue of whether the Americans’ image of Germany – and vice versa the Germans’ image of the United States – has suffered as a result.

6. In this context, we should strive to involve the Wilma Rudolph Oberschule in preparations for the exhibition – for example, by encouraging today’s successors of the American High School to actively address their American heritage.

7. In Germany, an international comparative study (PISA) has highlighted major deficits in the German school system, and it has sparked a national debate on education in the country. It could be beneficial to focus on the curricula and teaching methods of the American High School, which differed from those employed at German secondary schools.


II. Preparation and Contributions by the Project Team

The substantive development of the exhibition will rely substantially on contributions by the project team, whose composition was recommended by the Berlin Brats Alumni Association. Depending on the vantage points of the individual members, these contributions will consist of their particular knowledge of the school’s history, their role as witnesses to history as former teachers and/or students in West Berlin, networking, and their involvement in historical research and the search for artifacts.

The first goal is to cooperate in defining a concept, which is to outline the contents of the planned exhibition and categorize it into individual theme rooms.

Additional volunteers from the Berlin Brats Alumni Association are to be recruited for active involvement in historical research. Available sources include the annual yearbooks of the Thomas A. Roberts School and the Berlin American High School, as well as the Berlin Observer (community weekly). Historical research should also be done at the National Archives, Washington DC, and in the American Overseas Schools Historical Archives & Museum in Wichita, KS. Interviews with contemporary witnesses will be an important source while researching the school’s history.

The majority of the artifacts exhibitioned (historical objects, souvenirs, photos, documents) should be selected in a collection among the Berlin Brats. They will be complemented by artifact research in the above-mentioned American and Berlin archives. As a rule, the exhibition search should concentrate on authentic, original items.


III. Implementation

Plans are to open the exhibition during the 2006 Berlin Reunion of the Berlin Brats, from July 27 - 30, 2006, and to show it for three to six months as a regular part of the Allied Museum’s program of special exhibitions. Admission will be free.

The special exhibition area of the Allied Museum, with an area of approximately 400 m² (about 4,300 square feet), will be available for the exhibition. In terms of design and educational value, we intend to present the materials according to contemporary museum methods, which will aim to address and appeal to the general public as well as school classes.

As with all Allied Museum displays, the exhibition texts will be presented in German, English and French.


IV. Publication

A discussion point should be whether a display catalogue with texts, photos and reproductions of artifacts should be published to accompany the exhibition. It is conceivable that this could be done under the charge of the Berlin Brats to fulfill their own requirements.


V. Funding

The independent funds of the Allied Museum will finance the planned exhibition. Sponsors, who are more likely to be found in the USA than in Germany, are more than welcome anytime.


Florian Weiß, Curator, Allied Museum / June 15, 2004

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